How To Engage Employees With Technology Based Change

When you think about the millions of dollars organizations spend each year on IT
programs of work, wouldn’t it be prudent knowing that employees actually
understand and most importantly embrace the reason behind the changes? There is
one way of ensuring that employees and their managers have got the message and
truly understand the reasons for the new system implementation. And that is the
means that you communicate change.

Let’s start with reviewing how most organizations manage technology based
change. If your organization’s approach to this type of change is new skills
training and employee communication strategies that include stakeholder
management (translated briefings), intranet and email updates then that’s not
managing change, rather it is focussed on information. So what is the difference
and why do we need to do anything more than provide information?

IT systems are not introduced for the sake of a new system itself, they are
introduced because there are benefits to be realised from a business management
perspective. This may include more information on customer profiles and
identifying other products or services clients may be interested in purchasing,
the changes might focus on back office systems such as greater information for
human resources management or accounting or they may focus on the supply chain
and logistics. Whatever the reason there is a business reason for change and
this is what employees need to understand if the full benefits of any system
implementation is going to be realised.

Let’s look at an example. This financial services organisation was introducing a
new back office system. In the past employees worked in separate divisions so
customers were transferred from one area to another to process their request.
The new system meant that all of the customer details were now available to
employees and that they would now work in teams and “own” the customer from the
commencement to end of transaction. It was a complete system and work style
change so before specific system training was introduced a simulated work area
was established and employees were taken through the customer experience. It was
important that they understood the benefits to the customer by looking at the
changes through the eyes of the customer. This way we created the “Aha” moment,
employees got the message better than any intranet, information session or email
bulletin could have conveyed it. And when employees went into system training
they clearly understood the benefits and business reasons behind the changes.

The five key things to remember when communicating technology changes.

Be very clear about the business reasons for the changes – who will benefit
and what will those benefits be?

Establish why those benefits are important? What will the impact be on the
organization?

Decide the key messages for your information strategy – what will you need to
communicate, to whom and when?

Concurrently design an engagement strategy at key points in your project plan
that will engage employees at all levels in the reason for the technology
changes.

Remember to ensure engagement the message is not about the system itself but
about the business reasons for the changes.

Finally, as change management professionals can we take the same approach to
managing system changes and apply it to every new organization? The answer is
clearly no because as every organization’ss culture is different, so it follows
that every approach to change management and employee communication must be
different to maximise the investment and potential of the system changes that
are implemented.

About the author: Marcia Xenitelis is a recognized authority on the subject on
change management and has spoken at conferences around the world. For access to
case studies and more information on the types of strategies you can implement
to engage employees visit
www.itculturalchangetips.com for a wealth of free informative articles and
resources.